


sry no refunds but i got u the sun, stars, and the moon

by waywardflower



Series: i'd give you flowers, but i'm too busy choking on my feelings [3]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Communication, Confessions, Coughing, Crying, Hanahaki Disease, Jeremy's POV, Lunchroom Drama: part two, M/M, Oops Probably Should Have Tagged That For The Rest Of The Series, Resolution, Swearing, the 4 Cs lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-04 04:15:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13356297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywardflower/pseuds/waywardflower
Summary: Michael and Jeremy talk some, throw up a lot, don't talk at all, talk more, and make some promises.There's a lot of crying, and it turns out nobody really knows what Hanahaki Disease is.





	sry no refunds but i got u the sun, stars, and the moon

**Author's Note:**

> last part y'all  
> this one has fewer jokes bc Srs Business  
> lmao

_Rattlerattlerattle._  
  
Jeremy sits next to a cot in the nurse’s office, leg bouncing anxiously as he texts his dad.  
  
The chair is shaking with the force of his anxieties. It’s too loud. He stops and bites his nails instead. But it’s too quiet, just him and _tickticktick_ of the clock, and Michael sleeping and what if Michael can’t breathe? How will Jeremy know? What if Michael dies? He can’t handle this. Michael can’t die. No. He can’t. Jeremy needs him.  
  
A spluttering noise marks Michael’s return to the land of the waking and worrying. Jeremy grabs a bucket for him to spit into, which may be a mistake, because when Michael sees him, the flowers start coming faster.  
  
“Shit, shit, shit.” It hits Jeremy, like a knife to the gut. Every time Michael sees him, it gets worse. _Is he the reason why?_ “Michael, your- your Hana- Hanahaki isn’t f- f- for m- m- me? Is… Is it?”  
  
The vomiting slows. He sits there gasping, takes off his glasses and presses the palms of his hands into the eyelids and won’t make eye contact. The gasping becomes wheezing, and Jeremy moves forward, worried for more flowers but he looks and it’s just Michael, laughing and sobbing hysterically at the same time.  
  
“No, no, no wait, I’m sorry please. I’m sorry, Michael,” cries Jeremy. The other boy only shakes his head, trying to take deep breaths.  
  
“It’s not your fault, Jere,” says Michael miserably.  
  
“I don’t understand,” he mutters. Without even thinking about it, Jeremy pushes forward, panic in his throat and heartbreak in his soul. “I don’t understand. I would give you the sun,” he gasps, “the m-moon,” he stutters, “and the _stars!_  
  
“You deserve the universe, how could this happen to you? Michael, I-“  
  
Michael starts vomiting flowers again, white petals turning red with blood.  
  
“No!” shouts Jeremy, surging forward, but stops. He’s hurting Michael more with every word he says. Why isn’t his love enough? _I love you,_ Jeremy wants to scream.

Jeremy is... well. Jeremy is a little high on Desperation. You might even go as far as to say he's a lottle Desperate. And Desperate Jeremy is not a good decision maker.

Which is why Jeremy reaches into the bucket of Things Michael Just Threw Up, picks out a seed, and swallows it.

Michael recoils. “No! _Jeremy!_ ”  
  
He can feel the hard little seed sliding down his throat, and he looks determinedly at Michael. If Hanahaki goes hand in hand with love, Jeremy will do whatever it takes. He has a lot to prove, a lot to make up for. If it saves Michael, he’ll do it. If it shows Michael Jeremy loves him, he’ll do it.  
  
“I love you,” declares Jeremy, the dread making a home in his stomach. Or maybe it’s just the flowers blooming inside him, but he only just swallowed it so it feels like that would be a bit premature–  
  
He coughs. There’s something lodged in his throat. Or not. What the fuck?  
  
He coughs, harder and his lungs scream and he can feel something twisting up inside his stomach, _how did they grow so fast?_ He coughs, and it’s a flower, the same color as Michael’s own.  
  
Michael and Jeremy exchange looks of terror.  
  
“What the fuck,” wheezes Jeremy.  
  
“You mother _fucker,_ ” Michael bites out.  
  
Simultaneously, they both start puking flowers. Michael hogs the bucket, but it turns out not to matter anyway, because that measly plastic pail cannot possibly hold the fucking bouquets that are being forcibly ejected from their esophagi.  
  
“What’s going on in here?” demands the school nurse, barreling into the room.  
  
What she finds is a flowershop’s worth of petals, strewn across the floor, and two boys looking absolutely disgusted.  
  
“Boys? Is this some kind of prank? I can have you suspended for this nonsense!” she snaps.  
  
(They don’t end up suspended for that nonsense.)

* * *

Michael won’t talk to Jeremy. Michael isn’t coughing up any more petals, but Michael isn’t talking to Jeremy.  
  
Bitterly, Jeremy thinks, maybe he deserves it. Maybe this was the last straw. After all the shit he pulled this year, maybe this–the sickness, the ill-timed confession, the fucking _idiotic_ moment where he’d thought he could solve their problems by swallowing a little capsule that might drastically alter his personality _(again)_ –was the catalyst.  
  
Well, it still doesn’t change the fact that Jeremy fucking _loves_ Michael, okay?  
  
Maybe Michael has let go. Maybe Michael wants nothing to do with him any more, but Jeremy had been ready to _die_ for Michael, _with_ Michael. Maybe Jeremy would still give Michael the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even if it isn’t enough–because Michael deserves the fucking _universe,_ okay, not some loser moron who is always ruining his life.  
  
Maybe… Maybe Jeremy’s heart is a little broken.  
  
But he’s not spitting out petals.  
  
But nothing’s changed about how he feels about Michael, so why had Michael been throwing up flowers anyway?  
  
Jeremy contemplates this, and everything else he feels about Michael Mell the next day at lunch, stabbing his cardboard pasta with a plastic spork. The spork snaps. Wonderful. He sighs.  
  
Rich clears his throat. “Okay, I swear I thought the school board got rid of the glue in the peanut butter. Your mouths aren’t glued shut, right? What gives?”  
  
At once, Jeremy becomes acutely aware of every single ear at the table perking up in his direction.  
  
“I’m just tired,” he and Michael mutter in unison. Fuck. Fools rarely differ, he guesses.  
  
“…nooooot that that is literally the laziest excuse in history, but have you considered…not lying out of your asses and actually dealing with whatever shit went down between you two yesterday?”  
  
“I don’t know, is it going to end up with Jeremy pulling some stupid-ass self-sacrificing bullshit again?” _Okay, sure, Michael. Snipe all you want. But at least make eye contact,_ Jeremy’s brain grumbles.  
  
“Wh- Jeremy?” Christine stammers, quietly concerned.  
  
“I don’t know, maybe if Michael decides to actually let people know when he’s dying,” he fires back. “Y’know, so people can like, help him and not freak out about the fact that their _best friend might be dead by tomorrow,_ ” and he means for it to come out spiteful, and petty, but the sentence ends and he’s actually on the verge of tears. How embarrassing.  
  
Soft gasping from the girls’ side of the table, and from one of the guys. Oh. Not one of the guys. It’s coming from Jeremy. Oh, okay. He’s crying. Okay, that’s… that’s fine.  
  
_Maybe I should take this somewhere else._  
  
He stands, fumbling and dropping his tray, stumbling away from the table to find that somewhere else for this breakdown he’s about to have. Distracted by the disorienting hitch of his own breath, he doesn’t see the faces glaring at Michael, who ignores them in favor of following Jeremy.  
  
He doesn’t notice he’s being followed until he trips and there are red-hoodied arms around him, pulling him up and toward the biology classroom, which is dark except for some fish tanks that glow in the back. Step by stumbling step, he’s guided to the back until he’s sitting right next to the purplish blue water of the tank with the crab. Jeremy watches the crab drag itself out of a nook in the artificial rock formation, and Michael watches Jeremy drag himself out of the weird hysteria-trance he’s fallen into.  
  
“Jere,” he starts, face down. “I’m sorry I haven’t been talking to you. I… I’ve been scared. I don’t know if the flowers are still inside of you, and I don’t want you to hurt because of me.”

Silence. Jeremy picks at his fingers. Michael pushes up his glasses, then blurts “also, I don’t know how you feel about me and I hate that you forced yourself to love me and I’m fucking sick of you taking pills or seeds or just whatever the fuck things that change your personality because I’m fucking scared you’re not going to be okay and we’re not going to be okay and I fucking hate this fucking stupid disease.”  
  
Wow, this sure is a weird communication kick they’re on. They haven’t been this honest since Jeremy took the Squip. But Jeremy can relate to what Michael’s saying. Fuck the plants. There’s something Michael hasn’t considered, _still._ Even though Jeremy has told him a thousand times. He’s getting a little sick of it. Saying it, not believing it.  
  
“Michael,” he whispers. “Can you just… listen? For just a second?”  
  
There are tears in his eyes, but he’s nodding, so Jeremy starts.  
  
“Nothing has changed.”  
  
That’s all he can get out, apparently. He starts tearing up, hit by the weight of his own words. Jeez. Communication and crying. That’s the new trend with them, then.  
  
“What?” Understandably, Michael is confused.  
  
Deep breath. “Sorry. I just. A lot is going on. Feelings. Um. Like I was saying. Nothing has changed. When did you, um, start getting it?”  
  
“The night before I gave you that stupid sweater,” murmurs the other boy.  
  
“Okay. Okay. Well, I can tell you that nothing about how I felt about you changed during winter break.”  
  
Michael sucks in a harsh breath.  
  
“And I can tell you that nothing about you I felt about you changed when I found out about the Hanahaki.”  
  
Jeremy reaches out now, because Michael is shaking so hard he looks like he could collapse at any time.  
  
“And I can tell you that nothing about how I felt about you has changed since I swallowed that seed.”  
  
Still shaking, but getting better. Jeremy’s voice gets softer.  
  
“And I can tell you that nothing about how I feel about you has changed since I threw up all those flowers, and I haven’t coughed since. I can tell you that right now, I would still give you the sun, the moon, and the stars, but that you deserve the universe. _I fucking love you, Michael Mell._ ”  
  
There’s sobbing. Oh. This is embarrassing. Oh gosh. Both Jeremy and Michael are doing that kind of ugly sobbing that actors win Oscars for, where all that comes out of your mouth is "huuuaaAAAHHHH" and also some drool because your face is scrunched up so hard. They're too loud, so a freshman comes in to shut them up, sees them hugging and crying in a pitch black classroom, and freezes.

"Are- are you like, having a gay crisis?" the freshman squeaks.

Jeremy nods, sniffling.

"Oh. Cool. Junior year sounds _lit._ " Then the freshman leaves.

It's fucking surreal, so they start to calm down. "God, I hate this school," grumbles Michael into Jeremy's cardigan. Somewhere in between wailing and the shaky shuddery breathing that comes after a good long meltdown, he wound up in Michael’s arms.

“I… I love you, too. Um. Obviously,” Michael mumbles into his shoulder. Obviously. Yeah, well, Jeremy’s heart is still soaring. He grins into Michael’s hoodie, but then things get serious.  
  
“But, Jeremy. You gotta… I can’t have you sacrificing yourself for me, like that. I… You could have _died._ We… we don’t know what the flowers are, or where they come from, or even why they appear, if we both had them while we… yeah. I was so fucking _scared,_ man.”  
  
Gripping the red fabric tight, Jeremy closes his eyes and replies. “I was scared, too. I’m sorry. I panicked. I thought you were going to… I can’t live without you.”  
  
Michael pulls away, and looks him in the eyes. “Jeremy. I love you. And I know that you love me. But we have to…” He gulps. “We have to be able to survive without each other. None of this dying for each other bullshit, okay? I… We’re better than that. Our love isn’t some blood sacrifice, okay? It's a two player game, but we work together, not for each other.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“Jeremy,” Michael says, grabbing his sides to study him seriously. “I am dead serious. You are priceless. Please, please don’t hurt yourself for love. I made a mistake. I’m sorry, I should have told you. Can we… can we both promise to live, even if everything goes wrong? Even if we break up, or move away, or… or die? I… You deserve to be happy and keep going. I promise, you do.” He sticks his hand out.  
  
_Priceless. Priceless. Priceless._ It bounces around Jeremy’s head, giddy and fully aware he’s not quite grasping the entire meaning of the word in relation to him, but ecstatic with the idea that with Michael, and with himself, he might get it, someday.  
  
He ignores the hand and kisses Michael instead.  
  
“I promise,” Jeremy says, and Michael kisses him back.

Later, the biology teacher returns and screams at them for being in a classroom unattended and disTURBING THE FISH WITH THEIR NONSENSE. There are threats of suspension.

(They don't end up suspended for that nonsense.)

**Author's Note:**

> oh man this has kind of been a shitpost but like,,,, it's not and i don't know what to do with myself  
> thank you for all your lovely comments! This series is a mess and I suffered for a week with this plotbunny so,,,, that's unfortunate  
> alternative jeremy could have used to destroy the flower instead of the seed:  
> tide pods, the forbidden fruit


End file.
